For years I’ve been diligent in making sure that most of the food I put in my body is beneficial in some way.  It always made sense to me to take care of my body so that it would take care of me.  To this day, I always read labels and buy organic this and that and try my best to fool my family by sneaking veggies into everything!

But, to be honest, somewhere along the line, I lost my trust in the labeling in our country.  The wording must be written by some of my not-so-favorite attorneys from back in my court reporting days or something.  It’s downright sneaky!“Fat free!” is in bold, colorful fonts on the front of packages, grabbing our attention, in hopes that we won’t see the small-, generic-font  chemicals, additives, and preservatives that are making us sick hiding on the back of the label.

I’ve gotten smarter and ignore all the fancy-shmancy front-label crap and go right to the ingredient list.  Sometimes it’s okay; but most of the time, it’s shocking.  I really wonder if the word “natural” has been edited in the dictionary.   Everything nowadays is “all natural.”  Yeah, right!

So that’s food.  We all know we have a problem there.

But another big problem is our skin.  It’s a huge surface on our body; and we are constantly being bombarded by commercials and ads for shaving cream, lotion, body scrub, facial cleanser, facial moisturizer, and makeup products.   Am I the only one that reads the back of these labels?  Oh, my goodness! It makes me sick!  (And to think I used to be an Oil of Olay girl!)

This focus on skincare all started when I had kids.  I got some really cute little bath sets with soap and lotion and whatnot from the hospital after I gave birth to my first.  I read the ingredients and knew I had to find alternatives, and pronto.   (I saved some of the “sensitive” baby soap to wash my car, and that did work well.)

We’ve found alternatives to most things in this house – coconut oil is a big one, used in many recipes around the kitchen, in our skincare and dental care.  But one thing that I’ve not been able to settle on was a solid, tried-and-true facial moisturizer for myself.  I  tried straight coconut oil, and it was a little greasy, even for my super-dry skin.

Searching online one day about six months ago,  I found this aloe vera moisturizer.  “Ninety-nine percent aloe vera” sounded/looked pretty “natural” to me.  Since I was hurried in making my purchase, I bought it without looking closely at the ingredients.

And here’s a picture from the back of the tube:

Yes, lots of good things – no parabens, animal testing, organic, etc.

But why are there so many ingredients?  Quite a bit more than just aloe vera, right?!

I guess it goes without saying that I won’t be purchasing this product again.

So the decision has been made.  I am taking the plunge, and I will be using this as my facial moisturizer from now on:

Now that I have my facial moisturizer covered, I just have to worry about going over the ingredient lists of the crackers my kids want every time they’re in the store.   For some reason, I think reading it again next week will change the ingredients I wasn’t so crazy about last time I looked.   Oh, what a vicious cycle!

C